Chance

An average subway ride for me consists of brief stares from adults, long stares from children, and silence. Or maybe once a week the jovial "hello! where prum?", and an occasional Jehovah's Witness trying to save my wayward soul. So Sunday night was really unusual in that I was approached by not one, but two old men, who were apparently unrelated.

The first old man was yelling at an old woman walking away from him when I came onto the car, insisting that she sit in the special seats restricted to the elderly, disabled, and pregnant. She was by no standards good-looking, it was clearly a friendly invitation. She refused, and hobbled away alone. Because he was yelling in my general direction, standing up and seeming crazy, at first I didn't even turn around but instead presumed he was yelling at me. So both of us were actually protesting the invitation violently for about a minute. Then once I realized he wasn't talking to me I sat down, and after about ten seconds he noticed me and began to actually invite me over. I said no, and he got off the train two stops later. I looked at the guy across from me like 'what was that all about?' and he asked a question to the younger Korean guy next to him, I think he asked him how to say "I'm sorry" in English. I think this because after he asked him the question, the guy said "I"m sorry" in English. But he never said "I'm sorry" to me, he just got off the train.

Then, about two stops later, a couple with a little girl boarded, and so did another old man in hiking gear. Hiking gear is a staple of the elderly Korean's wardrobe. The family stood in front of me, and the old man stood separate. There was no apparent relation. This didn't stop him, though, from walking up to the little girl and yelling at her in Korean to practice her English, and repeatedly putting her hand into mine. Her parents were laughing indulgently, and she was turning bright red. I went along with it and said some basic stuff really slowly in between the old guy yelling at her. If she knew any English, no one was going to get it out of her. Then he asked me "where prum?" and exited. The family left a few stops later, re-enforcing my notion that there was no relation.

The coincidence of these two events happening on one subway ride, when I can go twenty or thirty in a row being left alone, reminds me of the danger of drawing a portrait of a place based on brief experience. Maybe I should stop calling Vienna seedy, or Switzerland happy. How long will it take before I have a really complete picture of the odds of any bizarre situation arising, as I do at home? I have seen many people throw up and pass out on the train, but last weekend was the first time I saw a police officer come onto the train because of it. Just when I thought I knew what was going on, the plot thickens.

In other news, I lost my camera, probably at a bar that I can't call because the number isn't listed. This is totally typical of Korea. I realized this when I reached in my bag to take a picture of "Chung's Pizza, A Delicious Concept for the Whole Family."